“My child,” he said, gently, “we
all say we follow Christ, but most of us only follow
him and his cross—­part of the way.
When we are told that our Lord bore our sins, and
was wounded for our transgressions, I suppose that
meant that He felt as if they were His own in His great
love for us. But when you shrink from bearing
your fellow-creature’s transgressions, it shows
that your love is small.”

Rachel was silent.

“If you really love him you will forgive him.”

Rachel clinched and unclinched her hands.

“You are appealing to a nobility and goodness
which are not in me,” she said, stubbornly.

“I appeal to nothing but your love. If
you really love him you will forgive him.”

“He has broken my heart.”

“I thought that was it. It is yourself
you are thinking of. But what is he suffering
at this moment? You do not know or care.
Where is he now, that poor man who loves you?
Rachel, if you had ever known despair, you would not
thrust a fellow creature down into it.”

“I have known it,” said Rachel, hoarsely.

“Were not you deserted once? You were deserted
to very little purpose, if after that you can desert
another. Go back in your mind, and—­remember.
Where you stood once he stands now. You and his
sin have put him there. You and his sin have
tied him to his stake. Will you range yourself
for ever on the side of his sin? Will you stand
by and see him perish?”

Silence; like the silence round a death-bed.

“He is in a great strait. Only love can
save him.”

Rachel flung out her arms with an inarticulate cry.

“I will forgive him,” she said. “I
will forgive him.”

CHAPTER LII

How Hugh shook off Lady Newhaven when she followed
him out of the Palace he did not know. There
had been some difficulty. She had spoken to him,
had urged something upon him. But he had got rid
of her somehow, and had found himself sitting in his
bedroom at the Southminster Hotel. Anything to
be alone! He had felt that was the one thing in
life to attain. But now that he was alone, solitude
suddenly took monstrous and hideous proportions, and
became a horror to flee from. He could not bear
the face of a fellow-creature. He could not bear
this ghoul of solitude. There was no room for
him between these great millstones. They pressed
upon him till he felt they were crushing him to death
between them. In vain he endeavored to compose
himself, to recollect himself. But exhaustion
gradually did for him what he could not do for himself.